Italian fashion students fall in love with Irish tweed – Irish Times

Roma’s Wild Donegal Tweed project, which demonstrates the cultural value of traditional Irish textiles, will be on display at the Showcase, a craft and design exhibition at the RDS in Dublin this weekend.

In December, students from NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti), Italy’s largest art, fashion and design academy and highly regarded, will be brought together to create Donegal tweed under the creative direction of a Milan-based artist. An unusual cultural initiative to use was made in Rome. , designer and curator Nuala Goodman has lectured at the Academies of both Rome and Milan, and she has had an outstanding career in which she has collaborated with many creative companies.

The idea for the Wild Donegal Tweed Project was born last year during a meeting at the impressive Irish Embassy with Mr Goodman, NABA Superintendent Sylvia Simoncelli and Patricia O’Brien, the Irish Ambassador to Italy (the first female Ambassador to Italy). It was born out of discussion. Villa Spada in Rome. The aim was to raise awareness in Italy of various aspects of Irish craft and design and to strengthen bilateral cultural relations between the two countries.

There was immediate and unconditional support from five major Donegal tweed companies approached about collaboration. Magees, Molloy & Sons, McNutt, Studio Donegal, and Triona donate fabrics typically used for suits, jackets, throws, etc. to his NABA in Rome, and students agree to work and experiment with the fabrics. did. Most of these companies have an illustrious textile history in Donegal dating back over a century.

After a detailed preliminary explanation, Goodman provided the students with a common shape – a cushion – and then used a variety of weaving techniques to explore the expressive potential of traditional textiles. Did. Many of the 30 young fashion, design and art curation students were Italian, while others came from Latvia, Honduras, Israel, Palestine, Bulgaria and Sri Lanka.

Some of the techniques employed were traditional such as embroidery, felting and patchwork, while others were processed using heat pressing, fabric cutting and weaving with thick tweed fibres. Some students preferred to use textiles in more conceptual ways, such as highlighting the geographical location of tweed production or linking the city of Rome with County Donegal. Some lines of poetry were painstakingly embroidered, while some references to the symbolism of traditional Irish Claddagh rings. On one of his cushions, a line by WB Yeats was embroidered with alpaca wool collected and hand spun in Donegal.

One student showed a she-wolf drinking Guinness and feeding Romulus and Remus, while another pasted mother-of-pearl, tweed flowers, and gray pearls onto the fabric. Elsewhere, the cushions were puffy, padded, and three-dimensional. The wildest manipulation involved cutting and reconfiguring the tweed. “The students exceeded our expectations and didn’t want to go home at the end of the day,” Goodman said.

The final work was unveiled at a glittering event at the embassy in December, where Ms O’Brien outlined the many connections between the two countries. The piece was displayed by two white-gloved students, Francesco and Margherita, who took turns holding each piece aloft to her during a lecture on the history of Donegal tweed.

The event also highlighted that Donegal tweed is about to gain PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) status in Europe, making Donegal tweed one of the first non-agricultural products to receive such protection, and Maggi’s best Donegal tweed became one of the first non-agricultural products to receive such protection, according to managing director Patrick Temple. And his long-time push for the position “will be a stamp of approval for the local industry on the global stage.”

The Wild Donegal Tweed project will be unveiled at the Showcase Design Expo at the RDS from Sunday 21st to Tuesday 23rd January, courtesy of the Irish Design and Crafts Council. Further exhibitions of this work are planned elsewhere in Ireland. These photos were taken during her Wild Donegal Tweed workshop at NABA with the help of Annalisa Polli, NABA’s Communications and Events Specialist.